Hospice receives Lottery funding

ST NICHOLAS Hospice Care has received almost £170,000 in Lottery funding to part-fund its Community Hospice Team.

The grant, of £169,569, will make a significant contribution to costs of the community team’s costs - estimated to be around £500,000 a year.

The team was set up in March 2009 to provide support and palliative care to patients in their own homes.

Barbara Gale, hospice chief executive, said: “The Community Hospice Team is a vital service, which plays a pivotal role of enabling patients to remain in their won homes for as long as possible and still receive dedicated and specialist care.

“So many patients prefer to receive car in their own homes, surrounded by their family, pets and possessions and we believe where possible patients have the right to receive this.

“But while this grant is so wonderful and welcome, it only equates to less than two weeks of our annual operating costs of £4.8 million. In these uncertain financial times, we still very much need the support of the entire community.”

Trevor Farrington, Head of the Community Hospice Team, said: “This is a significant contribution to ensure our existing services will continue.

“It also gives us the opportunity to widen our approach to patients and those carers who would not have previously been supported by the hospice.

“It is supporting patients and professional colleagues to enable vulnerable people to remain in their home in the last weeks and months of their life.

“We do that by aiming to control their symptoms, providing support to families and carers and make sure our professional colleagues are more confident in the team approach.

He added: “We are overjoyed at receiving this award from the Big Lottery Fund. We have already helped hundreds of patients across West Suffolk and Thetford and we are delighted that this valued service can continue for the next year and beyond thanks to this grant.”